This is response to the poetry prompt for The Reverie Journal this week and Poets on the Page. I thought of cycles and immediately thought of the cycle of abuse. This is the moment before the abuse starts. After the honeymoon period when things have settled and gone back to stasis.

Is there a cycle in life that makes your fingers itch to write? It doesn’t have to be a heavy topic, of course. That’s all up to you.

She drinks in the morning’s gentle glow,
watching rich plums, fade into rouge, orange peaks
unfolding,
and finally bright yellow
chases away lingering tendrils of inky night skies.
Even the distant mountains’ craggy peaks
seem to stretch a little
to feel dawn’s embrace.
Her puppy lifted his sleepy head once
giving a half-hearted yip at birds
singing their morning tribute
in the maple trees.
She sipped her coffee from her chipped mug,
toes curled on her porch’s rail.
Pink polish matched the swaying the posies.
She smiled,
settling into her happy place.

***

Welcome to the 20th of March, which is when #1000 Speak for Compassion like to spread joy across the internet. Today is also International Day of Happiness, which I think is an absolutely brilliant pairing.

Write something about your happiness, finding happiness, happiness in general, or compassion. Be sure to link up below, we want to read what your thoughts.

He’d taken her out the night before
friends from college hazed days and adolescent angst.
Soaking memories in tequila and a beer back.
Bad haircuts, boyfriends, and pierced places.

He’d always been there.

Through knobby-kneed scrapes from falling down, down, down
the water tower,
Grounded for “letting her” climb it.
Gum matted hair from blowing up, up, up
Guinness worthy bubbles.
Got grounded for cutting her bald on the left side.

Growing up worth the growing pains.

She’d snuck her first cigarette behind the gymnasium,
he held the lighter.
Wanted to tell her the glow set gave her face the cast of a misspent angel,
he swallowed those words.

First recital, her notes falling flat, stilted applause.
He grabbed her hand, pulled her into the bathroom. Pulled her brush out of her purse, pulled My Chemical Romance from her lips.
He ached to whisper the lyrics would be nothing without her contra alto. She sang and his world felt righted. Her voice breathed life into his soul.
He settled for her smile.

Always waiting.

His toast was broken with him clearing his throat. Champagne hand shook, crowd mistook it for nerves.

For a mad moment, he wanted to grab his best friend,
spirit her off to a castle on a hill,
a beautiful spot in Italy where they
would throw their gluten-free diet to the wind.
To anywhere, but that moment.
Where he had to smile and tell the only woman he’d ever loved.

Goodbye.

***

This was in response to today’s Reverie Journal poetry prompt on starts. I took it to mean, he chose to start nothing and he was left with a friendship, but wanting so much more. Now he’ll always wonder…

Let me know what you think about it in the comments. Please go over and check it out. Write something yourself!
Aloha y’all!